Our Move from App Engine to WordPress
Django Development
To harken in the New Year, we moved gunnertech.com from App Engine to WordPress.
App Engine is a great platform and the Python/Django/NoSQL stack we use when developing apps for clients is a powerful and cost-effective solution.
Additionally, we were building an in-house CMS, CRM tool and Project tracker behind the scenes.
However, our company goals for 2011 included publishing more content, focusing more on Marketing and using existing software to reduce cost and decrease time-to-market.
To that end, we broke off the aforementioned components into WordPress, Redmine and Fat Free CRM, respectively.
Redmine and Fat Free CRM are built on Ruby on Rails and we host both on Heroku. We have developers writing Plugins for Redmine and helping to get both Rails 3 ready.
We traditionally host WordPress sites on Dreamhost or Amazon Web Service, depending on the traffic demands of the site. Also, we noticed the bulk of our development opportunities were for WordPress.
To that end, we have spent months developing a theme that customizes the CMS passed almost anything that resembles a WordPress instance. This theme relies heavily on head.js, HTML5 Boilerplate, Grid System, CSS3 and jQuery.
For companies needing a publishing platform with heavy Social Media integration and flexible options, we’ve found it nearly perfect.
At the same time, it allows us to focus our efforts with development projects and use Ruby and Python for web apps and our WordPress theme for traditional websites.
Finally, we are actively working to document our theme for developers and consumers and plan on releasing it when we’ve completed that documentation.
About Cody Swann
Cody Swann is an entrepreneur, developer, strategist, banged up ex-football walk-on, retired body builder and former journalist born and raised in South Florida. He currently splits his time between his hometown of Stuart, FL and Los Angeles, CA. Cody founded Gunner Technology, a highly sought after digital agency, specializing in helping companies maximize profits through custom web development, technology efficiencies, social media strategy and search engine marketing.
As a manager and developer at ESPN for nearly six years, Cody led development and vision for two of ESPN’s most popular online features: Sports Scoreboards and GameCasts. Additionally Cody oversaw all aspects of MyESPN and ESPN’s social network, ESPN Fan Profiles. Cody worked with Technology, Editorial, Sales, Marketing and relevant business stakeholders to mold ESPN’s social media strategy, develop custom applications for it and execute it. Under his direction, ESPN successfully ported large portions of its core product from a proprietary Java stack to an open source Ruby on Rails stack, capable of standing up and performing under the tremendous load world's most popular sports site delivers.
Cody began forging his technological knowledge more than 10 years ago, developing and designing websites in college. His development work has included web development, web design, content writing, digital photography and digital video production for award-winning sites like Gainesville.com, GatorSports.com and ESPN.com. He has helped set digital strategy and direction for companies in the New York Times Regional Newspaper group, ESPN, ABC and Disney.
He is a recognized expert in web development, social media strategy, search engine optimization, conversion optimization, analytics tracking and business planning. He has worked with large interactive media companies to small and medium sized businesses. Cody motivates and inspires creative teams to deliver superb, polished work under tight deadlines.